Arm's Length Sadness

Yesterday was a brutal reminder of why, my entire life, I've basically kept every team other than the Mets at arm's length.

More often than not, rooting for the Mets is an exercise in soul crushing disappointment. The last time something worked out for the team I was 3 going on 4. I'll be 28 next week.

Damn.

Anyway, you follow a team the way I follow the Mets across an entire calendar year -- waiting with bated breath for Spring Training, living and dying with them across 162 games each year, writing posts like this in the offseason -- and it's hard to muster that same level of enthusiasm for another team.

A big part of it is self-preservation. Living and dying with a team can take a lot out of you, especially, again, when that team so routinely disappoints. I've already got one consistent loser in my life, the thinking goes, what do I need with another one?

(A terrible side effect of this syndrome of mine is that I'm drawn to "sure things" in other sports. As much as I hate the Yankees, I tend to like their equivalents in football (the Patriots), basketball (the Lakers and Celtics) and tennis (Roger Federer, Pete Sampras). Just to be clear, I'd never root for those teams over the Giants, Jets, or Knicks, but if the home teams are out of the running, I tend to latch on to the nearest winner. Bad quality.)

Anyway, things have changed a bit this offseason. I've gotten really into both the Giants and the Knicks, and to a lesser extent, the Jets.

We had an all star crew out at Side Bar for the games yesterday, but we didn't exactly get all star results. The Giants' loss to the Phillies Eagles was like a one-game version of the Mets' collapse in 2007, albeit without the finality. Losing yesterday was so improbable that even now it still seems impossible that it actually happened.

But sure enough it did, and when it was over I found myself overcome by that familiar feeling of sick-to-your-stomach disappointment. It's the kind of feeling only the Mets have ever really inspired, and not just because they wrote the book on clutching defeat from the jaws of victory. It's more a function of never caring enough about any of the other teams.

And now all of a sudden I do, and all I have to show for it is the kind of loss that punches you right in the gut.

That, and a pretty awesome day at Side Bar.

- A.F.O.M.G.